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European Commission big on small business
The European Commission reported this month that too
few Europeans are setting up their own businesses
and too few small businesses in Europe experience
substantial growth. Yet almost half of Europeans
say they would prefer to be self-employed, and almost
a third of Europe's small and medium sized enterprises
(SME) cite growth as their main ambition. To overcome
this paradox, the European Commission launched a
new Action Plan to boost entrepreneurship in Europe.
"Europe needs more entrepreneurs to boost our lagging
competitive performance," said Enterprise Commissioner
Erkki Liikanen. "To strengthen innovation, competitiveness
and growth, more Europeans need to start or take over businesses,
and once a business is established it needs the conditions
in which it can grow."
To encourage entrepreneurship, the Action Plan suggests fostering
a more entrepreneurial mindset among young people and looking
at how bankruptcy and other rules could be adapted to reduce
the stigma of business failure.
Improving the way business transfers are treated and
examining whether social security provisions discourage people
from taking the jump from employment to self-employment are
also high on the agenda.
The Action Plan also focuses on providing tailor-made support
for women and ethnic minorities and on reducing the complexity
of complying with tax laws.
Examples of best practice will be benchmarked and shared
across the new enlarged Europe. Special attention will be
given to SMEs' viewpoints when new legislation is being drafted.
The Action Plan builds on the broad consultation on the Entrepreneurship
Green Paper published last year. This allowed all interested
stakeholders to be involved in setting the future entrepreneurship
agenda.
Kyoto Protocol now legally binding in the European Union
The European Parliament and the Council have announced
they have adopted all of the measures necessary
to make all the remaining requirements under
the 1997 Kyoto Protocol legally binding in all
Member States. The greenhouse gas emission targets
of the European Union (EU) and its individual
Member States became binding in 2002.
The most recent action deals with the way in which emissions
have to be monitored and reported in accordance with the Protocol.
With this action, all provisions of the Kyoto Protocol have
become EU law.
"
Now we have adopted all the necessary EU legislation
to carry out our commitments under the Kyoto protocol," said
Margot Wallström, European Commissioner for the Environment. "This
means that we are fully implementing this important Protocol
even before it has entered into force at international level.
As a strong bloc of soon-to-be 25 countries, the European
Union has a special responsibility to show global leadership
and pave the way for other countries to follow suit."
The new rules provide concrete procedures for accounting,
reporting and review of emissions, replacing and widening
the previous Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism Decision,
which only covered requirements arising from the 1992 UNFCCC.
In addition, the rules address reporting and monitoring issues
related to the EU's "Burden Sharing Agreement",
under which each Member State has accepted an individual target
for limiting or reducing its greenhouse gas emissions when
the EU ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2002.
The new rules will allow Member States and the EU to monitor
their progress towards meeting their reduction targets and,
based on this, take additional measures, if necessary. They
also provide for the necessary co-ordination between the EU
and the Member States during the UN compliance and review
procedures envisaged by the Kyoto Protocol. Within the EU,
the Commission has to assess progress annually and, if necessary,
propose suitable measures.
SOHO - the only way to really look at the sun
SOHO, a solar observatory, is a mission of international
co-operation between ESA and NASA, launched in
December 1995. Every day SOHO sends thrilling
images from which research scientists learn about
the Sun's nature and behaviour and experts around
the world use SOHO images and data to help them
predict 'space weather' events that could affect
our planet.
As such, the Sun ejected a spectacular 'eruptive
prominence' into the heliosphere last Friday and
SOHO faithfully recorded the event.
 This 'eruptive prominence' is a mass of relatively
cool plasma, or ionised gas. It is considered 'relatively'
cool, because the plasma observed by the Extreme-ultraviolet
Imaging Telescope (EIT) on board SOHO was only
about 80,000 degrees Celsius, compared to the plasma
at one or two million degrees Celsius surrounding
it in the Sun's tenuous outer atmosphere, or 'corona'.
At the time of this snapshot, the eruptive prominence
seen at top right was over 700,000 kilometres across
- over fifty times Earth's diameter - and was moving
at a speed of over 75, 000 kilometres per hour.
Eruptive prominences of this size are associated
with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and the combination
of CMEs and prominences can affect Earth's magnetosphere
when directed toward our planet. However, in this
case, the eruptive prominence and associated CME
were directed away from Earth.
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